sunday post #41

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. It's a chance to recap posts from the past week and tease upcoming content, as well as share new books, reading challenge progress, and anything else you've come across in the last seven days.

This week marks my last five days at my soon-to-be-former job — yay! My supervisor actually "forgot" that the 11th was my last day...despite getting almost a month's notice. He tried to talk me into staying on until the end of the month, apparently not fully understanding the concept of taking a full-time, salaried position somewhere else. The whole conversation just makes me so much more grateful to be moving on to a company and a position that are much better suited to where I am professionally and personally.

My New Year's Eve was spent quietly at home, watching masterclass episodes of the Great British Baking Show. I'm slowly getting back into the swing of my hobbies, specifically reading and watching movies in my spare time, rather than aimlessly watching the same YouTube channels again and again. It feels good to have the motivation and presence of mind to want to spend my free time in a more structured way (although I'll never knock vegging out from time to time!). This is also the third year I'm participating in Yoga With Adriene's 30 Days of Yoga challenge; after several weeks away from the mat some muscles are definitely in protest, but I love the feeling of practicing again. I don't have any specific goals for the monthly challenge, or my yoga practice going forward, but I am hoping to rebuild a little bit of strength and introduce a little more calm into my days :)

sunday post #40

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. It's a chance to recap posts from the past week and tease upcoming content, as well as share new books, reading challenge progress, and anything else you've come across in the last seven days.

I can't believe the year is practically over! Christmas went well and was a very quiet affair, just my parents and I. That's usually how we celebrate and I love the low-key tone the entire day has, rather than spending long hours stressing over meals, outfits, and entertaining distant relatives. Holidays still take a bit of preparation though, so between the weekday timing of Christmas and the lingering need to finish some projects before moving on to my new job, it was plenty busy this week.

Beyond my gradual re-read of Goblet of Fire I got very little reading done and almost no blog hopping; I'm hoping to catch up today, along with the necessary errands and chores, before starting another wonky work week. I have Monday and Tuesday off, with no big plans for New Year's Eve, then make a quick work trip on Wednesday. Honestly, I'm just excited at the prospect of getting back into the usual swing of things and settling into my new office for good! It feels like I've run around like a crazy person for the last month, and there's no better time to start fresh than on January 1st!

sunday post #39

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. It's a chance to recap posts from the past week and tease upcoming content, as well as share new books, reading challenge progress, and anything else you've come across in the last seven days.

It's been a long, but good, week. On Monday I broke the news I teased in last Sunday Post to my boss: I'm starting a new job in January! I'll have a much shorter and less stressful commute, better pay, and overall a more comfortable environment, so this is a very good thing. My current job has offered a lot of great experience, which I'm grateful for, but it was obvious to me very early after starting that I could not and would not want to build a career with that group. I'll be with them through the first part of January in order to wrap up some on-going projects, then make my transition!

Phantom of the Opera was fantastic, with one glaring exception: the venue allows late seating, so for the first 20 minute or so, ushers and late-comers were standing in front of our section and blocking the view of the stage. Since I'm a season subscriber I shared my very negative impression of that particular policy with their office, but I don't know if it will change anything for future shows. The set design and performances were all outstanding, though, so if the American touring company visits your city I highly recommend catching a show!

With Christmas coming up, my weekly schedule will be totally wonky. I am taking a couple of days off of work and hope to get a lot of seasonal tidying, shopping, and reading done in the meantime. Today and tomorrow I'll also do a lot of prep work for Christmas Day, including all my holiday baking!

sunday post #38

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. It's a chance to recap posts from the past week and tease upcoming content, as well as share new books, reading challenge progress, and anything else you've come across in the last seven days.

My last big work trip of the year was this past week (to Philadelphia) and I'm so happy to have it behind me! I'll have some exciting professional news to share next week, but first I needed to get that last task out of the way. The trip ended on high note, as well. While waiting for my 6 AM flight back home I ran into an old friend from high school —they'd also gone to Philly for work and we were taking the same plane home! Because we were on an airline with no assigned seating, we got to sit next to one another and catch up, which made the three hours breeze by.

Tonight I have a fun little Christmas party to attend. For the last few years, a group of girls have hosted a potluck tacky sweater and sock exchange party. Everyone brings a snack and wears an outrageous Christmas sweater, then after we've all had a chance to eat we do a Secret Santa-ish exchange of tacky winter socks. It's always a lot of fun and very laid back, which is the perfect kind of get-together for this time of year!

And my musical season tickets begin this week too! On Wednesday I get to see Phantom of the Opera; it's been years since I got to see the stage musical and I'm really excited to have a little solo date night.

sunday post #37

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. It's a chance to recap posts from the past week and tease upcoming content, as well as share new books, reading challenge progress, and anything else you've come across in the last seven days.

Another week, another trip. This time I had to visit a site in southern Georgia, but luckily I flew into Atlanta. I drove there several times in college for football games and built up a small list of places I liked to visit; it was nice getting to stop into some again after a few years! Travelling somewhere slightly familiar made everything a little less tiring, a nice treat as the holidays loom closer.

I did manage to get a tablet shipped to me before I left: I went with the Amazon Fire 8! I'm really pleased with all the features you can get for a budget price point. It has a decent screen for watching movies and TV shows, as well as enough space for a few e-books (not something I regularly read, but much better than my smartphone for the occasional e-ARC sent my way). Thank you to everyone who chimed in with their suggestions last week!

sunday post #36

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. It's a chance to recap posts from the past week and tease upcoming content, as well as share new books, reading challenge progress, and anything else you've come across in the last seven days.

This week I traveled to snowy Wisconsin and learned I was not built for sub-freezing temperatures! The good news is my work went smoothly and I managed to drive on the icy roads without an accident; even though I was perpetually cold, it was still a success.

Work continues to dominate the news in my personal life, for better or worse. No, this week it's for the better! There are more changes on the horizon that should give me more flexibility, more room for growth, and make me happier overall. I'm excited about the next couple of months as these changes develop, even if it means a little extra stress in the short-term.

Also, with all of this travelling I'm starting to think about picking up an inexpensive tablet for random internet surfing and Netflix-watching while I fly, if only to help save the battery on my phone. Which I need to keep powered up for actual calls (taking calls? on a cell phone? what??). Do any of y'all have recommendations for tablets you like?

sunday post #35

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. It's a chance to recap posts from the past week and tease upcoming content, as well as share new books, reading challenge progress, and anything else you've come across in the last seven days.

Whew. It's been a while, hasn't it? That new job I mentioned in my last Sunday Post is still going strong. The positives? $$$ The negatives? For a couple of months, I found myself completely drained of motivation to tend to my blog. I'm choosing to get back into a semblance of my routine right before it looks like I'll be taking on more responsibilities, but compared to the end of the summer I'm much more relaxed and confident about my situation. I might be a little choosier about the reviews I take time to write or how often I post (in the short-term, at least) but I'm so happy to return to the hobby and friends that add so much happiness to my days!

sunday post #34

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. It's a chance to recap posts from the past week and tease upcoming content, as well as share new books, reading challenge progress, and anything else you've come across in the last seven days.

Y'all. This week...has been insane. I went from interviewing for a new job on Monday to actually starting it Wednesday—and hadn't even heard about the opportunity until a couple days before the interview! In the blink of an eye I've gone from being able to structure my time and work however I want to clocking in at a small office about half an hour away from home. The (enormous) positive to all of this is that I'm getting the opportunity to learn so many new things in a field that felt impossible to break into.

Where the struggle comes in is trying to rapidly adjust to having a supervisor and learning his style of management, along with the deceptively simple question of figuring out just how my weekdays will be structured now. So much change in so little time has provided the perfect ground for some added anxiety and stress, which makes me doubly grateful for the long weekend and an opportunity to pause, breathe, and remind myself that these situations become what you make of them. If I continue focusing on the stress, I only make it harder to take advantage of what's in front of me.

This also means I've fallen behind on basic blogging things like returning comments and visiting all of y'all's lovely new posts! I appreciate your support so much and I'm hoping to catch up with everyone later this week ♥

sunday post #33

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. It's a chance to recap posts from the past week and tease upcoming content, as well as share new books, reading challenge progress, and anything else you've come across in the last seven days.

This has been a week of getting work done, both on and away from the computer...just not necessarily for the blog! I had three film reviews expected by Friday, which took up a considerable amount of my free time, and finishing Muse of Nightmares has left with a bit of a reading hangover. Along with not getting much reading done, I'm sorry to say it's been an off-week for blog hopping and replies as well. My hope is to be caught up by this evening, although I have some work-related things to get through as well. However strange it may sound, I missed my blogging friends the last few days!

I did manage to make time to go and see Christopher Robin, which was positively adorable. The computer animation was gorgeous and I loved the theme of returning to the important lessons of childhood. Eeyore is totally my adult #aesthetic, too. I really sympathize with his benignly gloomy outlook 😂

sunday post #32

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. It's a chance to recap posts from the past week and tease upcoming content, as well as share new books, reading challenge progress, and anything else you've come across in the last seven days.

Yesterday I bid an unofficial farewell to summer at an annual pool party that doubles as a fundraiser for a local charity! It's held at one of the nice old hotels north of downtown and, provided you show up early enough to stake out a good spot, it makes for some fun people watching while sipping on a cold drink in the pool. You also need to be smart enough to leave before too many guests have had one too many cold drinks in the pool, but that's another story...

I also broke out of my film-going rut and saw Mission Impossible: Fallout earlier in the week. When I was younger, I didn't really enjoy Tom Cruise's movies (with a couple of exceptions) but I've warmed to him in the last few years. Overall MI:6 was a great deal of fun, particularly watching it on an enormous screen with surround sound, and I'll never not be impressed with the practical stunts on display. This coming week I hope to make it back to the theater for The Meg and Christopher Robin...and keep avoiding the heat that just won't quit!

sunday post #31

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. It's a chance to recap posts from the past week and tease upcoming content, as well as share new books, reading challenge progress, and anything else you've come across in the last seven days.

It rained, it rained, it rained!! It's still raining as I type this beside the open shutters of a bedroom window, Sense and Sensibility playing softly on the television behind me while I try to catch up on all sorts of writing. All in all I've had a quiet week, although one unexpected phone call did deliver some momentary drama. Last summer, an Uber I was riding in got rear-ended on the highway. Because no one was injured (and it wasn't my car/I wasn't driving) and my mother is a notorious fretter, I never brought it up.

Apparently the insurance companies are still hashing out a payment though, because the other driver's agent somehow found my parent's unlisted home phone number and called looking for me! So...that caused a fuss. I was especially peeved since I made sure to leave my personal contact information with the responding officer, just in case something like this happened. The agent requested a written statement of what I remembered from the incident that I need to proofread and send off soon, although I'll admit instigating a minor family drama doesn't exactly encourage me to pick up the pace...

sunday post #30

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. It's a chance to recap posts from the past week and tease upcoming content, as well as share new books, reading challenge progress, and anything else you've come across in the last seven days.

Another easy week gliding by here, punctuated by dinner with old friends and a mid-morning break to indulge in a mani/pedi at my favorite salon. For dinner we tried a popular dive bar that's famous for their pizzas—and rightly so! By a bit of good luck, we planned our get-together for a day when the triple-digit heat broke and temperatures never rose out of the low nineties. At dusk, under a shaded patio with some fans blowing, it was positively delightful weather!

It was also nice dropping back in to my usual nail salon, which I haven't visited that often the last few months. I'd just wound up spending that portion of my "fun money" on other things...such is adult life and budgets, sadly. Even small changes like a pedicure or properly filed nails can make a world of difference, though, and I've had a little more bounce in my step after pampering myself.

sunday post #29

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. It's a chance to recap posts from the past week and tease upcoming content, as well as share new books, reading challenge progress, and anything else you've come across in the last seven days.

It was a very quiet week after a steamy weekend last week! The online screening link for a film I was meant to review never arrived, I felt somewhat unmotivated to start a new book, and it's still freaking hot outside. I filled my free time catching up on my Netflix queue a little and making progress with my writing, instead. I've also been baking a lot! On the way home last weekend we stopped at a peach farm—Texas peaches are unparalleled, sorry Georgia—and brought back about twenty pounds. While cobbler is my favorite dessert to make with peaches (or almost any other fruit), I've tried my hand at small-batch canning for the first time too. It will be a little bit before we know how it turned out but I enjoyed trying something other than the quick pickling recipes I usually stick to.

sunday post #28

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. It's a chance to recap posts from the past week and tease upcoming content, as well as share new books, reading challenge progress, and anything else you've come across in the last seven days.

Oof, it's hot! With highs touching 110°F (40°C and up!) I've only grudgingly ventured outside to run errands or scoop up packages from the front porch. All my avoidance has come to naught, though: today I'll be making a day trip into the country to visit my parents and some family friends. We try to get together about once a month, but I get the feeling the outdoor portion of this visit will be truncated 😅 Fair warning, comment replies may not come until tomorrow when I'm rehydrated and properly refrigerated once more!

sunday post #27

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. It's a chance to recap posts from the past week and tease upcoming content, as well as share new books, reading challenge progress, and anything else you've come across in the last seven days.

Thanks to everyone who voted in my jury duty book poll! Thankfully, I was never assigned to a courtroom, which meant that I got to wait in the large holding room for a few hours before being dismissed in time for lunch. While I got a lot of reading done, I also wound up sitting next to a teacher from my old high school—small world! We caught up on who was still teaching there and who had moved on to other schools, plus a little bit of gossip I wouldn't have gotten to hear as a student.

I caught up on recent movie releases, too, and finally saw Sicario: Day of the Soldado. Y'all, it was awful. Everyone made such dumb decisions and it was all for pretty much nothing by the end. Taylor Sheridan is such a talented screenwriter that I was surprised he delivered such a huge miss. Hopefully it's just a blip on the radar and not a sign of things to come!

sunday post #26

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. It's a chance to recap posts from the past week and tease upcoming content, as well as share new books, reading challenge progress, and anything else you've come across in the last seven days.

I'm happy to report that the bunny's birthday (aka, the Fourth of July) went splendidly! He got to nosh on some homemade strawberry cupcakes and dig through a big bag of presents filled with tissue paper to rip and tear. At the end of the week my mom and I went to see Incredibles 2. I'm sorry to say it, but I was a little underwhelmed? The scene with Jack Jack and a raccoon was pure gold though.

This coming week will have a little hiccup in my usual routine thanks to jury duty on Tuesday. Yay—not! I plan to put up a little poll on my Twitter (@darkmaterialss) tonight or tomorrow to help me decide which books I should take with me to stave off the soul-crushing boredom. Please stop by and vote!

sunday post #25

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. It's a chance to recap posts from the past week and tease upcoming content, as well as share new books, reading challenge progress, and anything else you've come across in the last seven days.

The days continue to be long and hot, with very little to report. It's hard to get motivating into leaving the house and running around when the temperatures are sweltering. I did remember to pick up a couple of new citronella candles when I ran errands this week, though, which should make evening reading sessions in the backyard possible, nay—pleasant! In addition to my usual book review schedule I screened a couple of upcoming movies as well, including the excellent Leave No Trace. The Fourth of July holiday has me extra wary of movie theaters, but I also really want to see Incredibles 2 and Sicardio: Day of the Soldado, so it looks like I'll be leaving the cool, dark shelter of my room for the cool, dark shelter of a cinema soon!

sunday post #24

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. It's a chance to recap posts from the past week and tease upcoming content, as well as share new books, reading challenge progress, and anything else you've come across in the last seven days.

The movies at the film festival last weekend may have been a little disappointing, but I made up for it this week with an early screening of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom! I absolutely loved this sequel, much more than the first in the "rebooted" Jurassic Park series. Granted, I don't go to these types of movies expecting grand, dramatic Oscar material; it did deliver on the blockbuster attitude and plethora of dinosaurs, though, so I'm already looking forward to catching another screening in a few weeks when the crowds have thinned.

On a related note, I was totally a "dinosaur kid" growing up, but best I can remember I loved all the different dinosaurs equally. Did y'all have a favorite dinosaur when you were younger?

sunday post #23

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. It's a chance to recap posts from the past week and tease upcoming content, as well as share new books, reading challenge progress, and anything else you've come across in the last seven days.

Happy Father's Day to those who are celebrating it—and a happy Sunday to everyone else! My family takes a relaxed approach to holidays, so most of our festivities today center around my cooking some of dad's favorite foods. It's a nice cap to a weekend highlighted by the film festival that I covered Friday and Saturday. Despite only going to a couple of movies, the commute to the theater and finding parking once you're there is a bit of a hassle; not having to deal with herds of inattentive drivers is nice!

I also went and saw Hereditary on my own this week. Have any of you seen it, or plan on seeing it? There were a couple on-the-nose moments but overall I think Ari Aster crafted a superb movie! He genuinely shocked me more than once—a hard task with this cynical horror fan—and Toni Collette deserves to be included in awards chatter at the end of the year. To top it all off I have a lovely little book haul down below, making up for the last few weeks of few to no new books coming in!

sunday post #22

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. It's a chance to recap posts from the past week and tease upcoming content, as well as share new books, reading challenge progress, and anything else you've come across in the last seven days.

Another week with not too much happening. The most exciting event was a threading appointment for my eyebrows, and when having itty-bitty hairs plucked off of your face is the thrilling part of your week...it's a boring week! I did get a little bit of my reading mojo back thankfully, although not ever book this week was a resounding success.

Next week will be a touch busier—I'm covering another film festival! This one shows much more eclectic movies than I normally watch, so I don't plan on seeing more than one or two over the entire four days that the fest covers. I am really looking forward to a recently restored silent film about Joan of Arc that's going to have a live score accompanying it, though. A lot of good movies have hit theaters recently too; hopefully I can make it out to one or two and not fall too far behind on my to-watch list!